The idea seems to be that if the House GOP refuses to raise the debt ceiling, a default crisis or gradual government shutdown will ensue, and the public will turn en masse against…Barack Obama. The Republican House that failed to raise the debt ceiling would somehow escape all blame. Then Democrats would have no choice but to pass a balanced-budget amendment and reform entitlements, and the tea-party Hobbits could return to Middle Earth having defeated Mordor.

[emphasis mine]

The trope took off the next day when Senator John McCain (R-AZ) read the article approvingly during debate on raising the debt ceiling. Liberals reveled in this GOP establishment belittlement of the party’s fiscally conservative faction, but that didn’t stop journalists from finding allegedly-offended Tolkien scholars who sliced and diced the metaphor more quickly than Aragorn did the Mouth of Sauron. And like one of the Nazgûl, the issue refuses to die — not two days ago McCain snubbed a call to recant from a Tea Party Gaffer at a town hall meeting back in Arizona.

So the GOP establishment, via the hobbit metaphor, dismisses Tea Partiers as diminutive Don Quixotes; simultaneously, many Tolkien fans and scholars take umbrage at the very notion that hobbits were anything but bucolic deadbeats longing for official Gondorian government subsidies of their mind-altering pipe weed. Neither is entirely correct. (Nor, for that matter, was Senator Rand Paul in calling John McCain a “troll”— a doctor should know that it’s McCain’s debating skills, not his skin, that turns to stone in the sunlight.)

Tea Partiers ARE very much like hobbits — and hobbits are not prehistoric hippies. Despite Professor Tolkien’s admonition that he “cordially dislike[d] allegory in all its manifestations,” various scholars in the last 60 years have employed Lord of the Rings [LOTR] as a palantir through which to view the world wars, the Cold War, environmentalism and Christian history (to name but the most obvious). Why not, then, do likewise for the contemporary American political scene — especially since the WSJ has already set the first foot upon this road? Let us see where it takes us…

Andrew Breitbart would be our Treebeard, who, along with the other ents, will assist the hobbits in overthrowing Saruman/Obama’s nascent empire, destroying his minions in fierce battle.

The Balrog?

I might name Michelle Obama, except, of course, that the Balrog had a more pleasant personality. However, in keeping with Rush Limbaugh as Gandalf (and remembering that the Valarauko were originally of an equal rank with the Maia Istari), I choose Chris Matthews, who could only dream of beating Limbaugh at his own game. =^[.]^=

“Far below the deepest delvings of the dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless creatures. Sauron fears them, for they are older than he.” Jimmy Carter is DEFINITELY the Balrog.

As for Treebeard, who goes to war with Sauruman to defend his trees, I think this has yet to be revealed. Hopefully the role will go to a Green Party Candidate who emerges to spoil 2012 for Obama (not a perfect analogy, but definitely funny).

What about Gwaihir the Wind Lord and his eagles, who don’t do a hell of lot, except pull major characters out of tight spots? Maybe Fox News?

Treebeard aka Fanhorn was the leader of the Ents a race that shepherded the trees of Fanhorn forest. There are no female ents because they had left eons before. The nets helped defeat Sauroman the wizard at the battle for the White Tower.

A Balroq was an ancient demon. One was uncovered in the depths of the mines of Moria. Gandolf defeated him.

No, as stated above, The One is more Saruman. Saruman, as Tolkien readers know, was absolutely convinced that he was smarter than everybody else- even Sauron.

Saruman was trying to “play both ends against the middle”, thinking he would come out on top. This is no different from the “Third Way” politics of Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder, et al., which Obama has (ostensibly) tried to emulate.

Of course, in Obama’s case, even his allegiance to a “middle ground” between communism and capitalism is a sham. He is too much of a dyed-in-the-wool leftist to do more than put on a facade’ of even European-style “centrism”- and he doesn’t wear it well.

Again like Saruman, his only real interest is his own advancement and self-aggrandizement, plus “getting back” at anybody and everybody who he doesn’t like. Like the American people, for instance.

However, Obama does differ from Saruman in one major way. When The One is thwarted, he tends to act like Gollum; reverting to rambling monologues boiling down to “We hates hobbits, we hates them, we hates them, yes we do, nasty, tricksy Hobbitttssss!!!!!”

The difference being that Gollum usually did his ranting behind a tree, not at a podium, on national TV.

The WSJ was more correct than they knew…in the episode from the books that didn’t make it into the movie, the hobbits banded together to drive out those who were ruining and despoiling their beloved Shire…

I found that an important side-story left out of the motion picture. An interesting comparison being the Shire hobbits who’d not even realized there had been a great and age-changing war going on and our Fellowship hobbits returning in their battle gear to their homeland, ready to kick butt and take names – so unhobbit like.

Also, if I remember correctly, Tolkien has Saruman being called “the Boss” in ‘the scouring of the Shire’.

Old Tom, in this context, could be Darrell Issa, working to neuter Old Man Willow, the NLRB (and the unions, by extension), which has been attempting to entangle free labor and market forces. The swords of Westernesse which the hobbits found in the barrow (DC, itself, once a hallowed shrine of our Republic, but corrupted by the evil influence of dark powers) were forged specifically to fight such creatures as the Nazgul, and I see them as the collective Amendments to the US Constitution.

Now, who can name the lesser eight Nazgul (I think we already have our Witch King, Nancy P)? =^[.]^=

The eight lesser Nazgul would be ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, and LAT. They owned the rings at one time; they had the power. But they surrendered their rings under the seduction of unified power, in the mistaken belief that they would be co-rulers. Instead, they have become toadies, exercising a will that is not their own.

But they are plague the land, their shadow is feared, they cannot die, but can be slain by one not man-born. (That would be Sarah Palin as Eowyn.)

I look at Ron Paul as Gollum/Smeagol. His Smeagle side is the domestic and economic ideas that are old fashioned, out of date, but not actively evil, but can not be trusted. His foreign policies notions, blaming US militarism for that which it never caused, is his Gollum side. Both contradictory policies are adopted with a view to get the ring, playing each in an attempt to fool different characters.

Smaug would have to be the Taliban/Al Qeada – primitive holdovers of a long-ago war holed up in caves far away from the real struggle. But, distant though they may be, their actions did kick off the most recent struggle.

Isildur would be George W. Bush, refusing to destroy the Ring of Debt when he had the chance, instead becoming smitten with it’s power and ultimately betrayed by it.

Are Morgoth and Melkor Hitler and Stalin, who long ago were corrupted by desire for power. Melkor and Morgoth were different names for the same evil.

Does FDR gets to be Feanor? mislead by Morgoth, and who had his jewels, the nuclear secrets, stolen by Morgoth? Or so we make the Second Age WWII?

Tolkien wrote his First Age material based on part on his experiences in WWI. Verdun is destroyed, the northern fortress of the Elvish powers. As a Catholic he felt half elven, loyal to the Catholic French, looked down on by the Protestant English.

Minas Tirith/Gondor is a slimly disguized surrogate for Contantinopole, destroyed by Islam, with cooperation of Christian cannon manufacturers and Janissaries, the offspring of western men, enslaved by the Turkish powers. The Madness of Denothor was of a piece with the stand of Constantius Paleologus, who did off his badges, and led an counterattack into the breach pounded by Turkish cannon. LOTR is a eucatatrophe, a happy ending if Bulgaria had been loyal as were the Rohirrim, if the Western Empire/northern Kindom had arrived with help in time.

Galadriel was one of the masterminds of the good guys. Her, Gandalf, and Elrond (Her son in law), were the keepers of the Three Elven Rings, and they were the strategic brain trust that guided the fight. Carl Rove or Lee Atwater are closest to her position in politics, unless there is a good witch hiding in a secret enchanted forest somewhere guiding the GOP’s war with the forces of “Progress”.

Arwen Undûmiel (Galdriel’s Granddaughter) has no equivalent in US politics. In the books, which is the only place that counts, she appears at a big dinner and hootenanny afterwards, but has no lines. Later she sends the future king his flag which she and her maidens made for him. When the war is over, she marries Aragorn. She never holds a weapon in the book. That is just Hollywood adding a woman hero where none was needed. The Elf Lord Glorfindel rescues Aragorn and the Hobbits when they are close to Rivendell. The men solved that problem all by themselves. (It was a different era, when men solved things the old fashioned way, with weapons and courage, and women stayed home and looked after the house and family.)

Clearly, Sarah Palin should be Éowen. Éowen describes herself as a “Wild shieldmaiden of the North”. She is a girl who prefers horses and the weapons of war to fancy dresses and soft living. When the Black Captain threatened to defile the body of her dead King & father, she killed him. If she had a chance to go caribou hunting, you can be sure she’d take it. She would get on well with the former Governor.

As for Hobbits and the Tea Party, they’d fit right in. The Shire was the ultimate small government state. They had one executive, the Mayor, who was also the chief of the Post Office and the Shirriffs, which were the local constabulary. The only had 12 Shirriffs and they mostly rounded up stray cows and returned them to their owners. The Army was volunteer and led by The Thain, a hereditary post belonging to the Patriarch of the Took clan. Everyone brought their own bows, arrows and food, and there was no public money spent on them. That was the whole government. Not having any taxes or regulation worth mentioning, they were prosperous. I am sure they would have laughed off and ignored any instructions from Minas Tirith telling them to switch to compact fluorescent bulbs.

The Hobbits lived the small government life the Tea Party dreams of. The WSJ was right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Jon in Maryland,
At the risk of further exposing my own LOTR geekiness: it’s “Eowyn.” But good catch on Theoden–lots of folks (especially those who have not read the book) miss that he is her uncle, not her father.

Egad! Two mistakes. Both of which I should have known better than to make.

Éomer and Éowyn were brought to Edoras by Théodred after both their parents died, and treated both as if they were his own children, but in formal speech he did refer to them as sister-son and sister-daughter, they were the children of his sister. I was referring to the family situation when I referred to him as her father, which was the role he played in her life.

The spelling mistake is unforgivable, yet easy to make. “Wen” is the Sindar word for maiden and many of Tolkien’s women’s names end in wen.

Obama is the Mouth of Sauron whose only skill is to give speeches. He speaks eloquently to confuse the masses into supporting his master while secretly despising them. In secret, he meets with the evil folk of Middle Earth to destroy the free peoples of the west. When he thinks, he has the upper hand he demands submission from his opponents with the imposition of cruel conditions and insults.

Beohner is actually Gollum. He once had the power, which he wielded for the ruling class republicans and now is held captive by the good Hobbits who seek to destroy that which he loves. While he will assist the tea party when it complies with his plans he has and will betray them in the end.

Congressman Allan West is Borimir, a brave and valiant warrior who is being tempted now by the ring of power and must reject it to save himself.

It isn’t bad enough that we’re called names by every nut on the liberal left. We’re called “Nazis, Brown Shirts, Un-American, terrorists, and hostage-takers.” Now we can add “Hobbit” to the list, and that’s from people who are supposed to like us, like John McCain.

Well screw all of them. There never would have BEEN a debt ceiling deal if it wasn’t for the Tea Party members of Congress. Obama would have simply raised the debt ceiling, like all the presidents before him, and nobody would have said a word. We would have added over two TRILLION dollars more to our debt and gotten nothing in return. If anybody around here thinks that’s a sensible way to run a government, then I’m proud to be a hobbit.

So to all you far-left cranks out there who want to keep calling us names, go ahead. It didn’t help you jerks in 2010 and it’s not going to help you in 2012. The early Christians were spat upon by the Romans, but the Christians remained true to their beliefs and prevailed in the end. Well, like those early Christians, we are holding true to our beliefs and we’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere. So deal with it, America.

Back to my beloved “Hobbit” how wonderful to see a group that actually know something about the hardy little hobbit. A pox on John McCain who picked the wrong subject to pummel the people with. Tolkien fans go way back in time and gather new admirers of this particular literature as they have moved forward since the 1930′s.

STILL AROUND THE BEND THERE MAY WAIT
A NEW ROAD OR SECRET GATE……….
J.J.R. Tolkien
Good to see the fans here. Believe, Vote and Change

Sounds like Rollzone is a product of magical thinking. Big article on that last year. Yep, magical thinkers. Went to the voting booth and elected a man with zero skills at anything. Except flying on AF One and riding in a Mordor bus. Shaking my head in wonder. Working the votes for 2012 at my kitchen roundtable.

Amusing, but too strained. Obama is not Sauron! Sauron had power and could get things done because he knew what he wanted and where he wanted to go. Obama is clueless and has to rely on the orders given him by his owners (who might be compared to Sauron). Obama is not a principal, he is an agent.
That is why “Tea Party as terrorist” is so amusing. It is the left wing terrorists who own Obama and give him his orders who are the bad guys. Think back to the weeks of negotiations where Obama got on TV every day and delivered the same speech. If he had simply said, “for example, the USPS will cut 120,000 jobs and get out of federal pension plans to same x number of dollars and we are examining other similar cuts” the whole tone of the country (and S&P report) would have changed. His owners and his fear of the wouldn’t allow it.
Obama has hidden from us many things about his past, his place of birth, his educational records, his health records, who fathered Michelle’s two daughters (she will be pregnant again next year) and those who own him know the answers to these questions. He can’t dispute them.
No, Obama isn’t Sauron.

Obama IS Saruman. I’ve posted about this elsewhere. Tim, I submit you missed a couple of substantive points in that comparison. Here’s my contribution.

The USSR was Mordor, its leaders collectively Sauron/Ringwraiths. It was defeated by a previous generation of hobbits.

The period we’re in is more like “The Scouring of the Shire”. DC is more like Isengard, whose current occupant was heavily influenced by Marxism, the evil product of the USSR. Similar to Saruman, Obama has lost almost “all power, save his voice that can still daunt you and deceive you if you let it.” (ROTK, “The Scouring of the Shire”) We’re partially like the Ents: we’re on the path of reducing him to complete powerlessness in 2012.

But Obama’s still in Isengard and like Saruman he’s sending his “gatherers” and “sharers” to enforce lots of new rules and redistribute our hard-earned gains. They’re “going round counting and measuring and taking off to storage. They do more gathering than sharing, and we never see most of the stuff again.” (ROTK, “The Scouring of the Shire”) So we will fight against that, like the hobbits did.

However, the damage will linger. (ROTK, “The Scouring of the Shire”) (Saruman:) “Still I have already done much that you will find it hard to mend or undo in your lives.”

He’d been nothing but a mouthpiece for so long “he himself had forgotten” his own name. Kind of like Barack Barry Hussein Sotero Obama.

He just repeated the lies of his master, and the original would certainly have used teleprompters if they’d been available in Mordor. It’s obvious Obama never writes what’s on the teleprompters, otherwise, it wouldn’t be such a disaster when he goes off script.

He’s also a whiner “I am a herald and ambassador and may not be assailed!” contrast that with BHO’s continual ‘The Tea Party terrorists are holding guns to our heads’ All the while standing in front of a million or so armed orcs and democrats.

Well, Arizonans? Are you pleased with yourselves now? Now that you’ve replaced Charlie Brown in the Lucy/football scene for evermore? I hate to say, “I told you so. but….
I TOLD YOU SO!!!”
His only heroic act was being shot down. Period. And that happened because he kept flying, even though he wasn’t fully healed yet, after he nearly sank his own aircraft carrier, being a jerk. He would have walked across hot coals straight to hell instead of going home to face his Pop and Grandpa, both actual war heros. It was a shame about the plane, though. Add to that the convenient “drop the old hag for the cute rich broad” transition, and I must ask: what do you people smoke out there? Maverick? My ass! Horse’s butt? Absolutely.
Oh, now that feels much better!

Great piece, by the way. As for me, Hobbits are nice, but I’ve always been partial to Gimli. Can you tell?

McCain himself, then, would be Thranduil. Thranduil is the King of the Elves of Mirkwood– he appears in the Hobbit. Valiant, a good leader, well-liked, but when he actually shows up on stage kind of a grasping, haughty disappointment.

Thranduil locked up Thorin and the dwarves when they were escaping Mirkwood. He later marched on the Lonely Mountain… partly to aid the humans of lake-town, but mostly to make a grab for Smaug’s gold. The elves and dwarves were about to fight it out over the loot, when when the goblins and wargs showed up and they joined forces and had the Battle of Five Armies instead.

Love this thread Great to see so many knowledgeable fans of LOTR. I would say we are early in the third age.George Soros is the witch king of Angmar destroying the northern branch of the Dunedain while civil war rages in Gondor between the Tea party and the establishment Republicans.

obama as Saruman….please!!!! He will never be smart enough to play that role. As I see it the only role he can play is a hobbit that likes to go on vacation and play golf. By casting him as Saruman you are insulting Christopher Lee. obama could possible play the fish that Gollum is trying to catch.

gollum is a tough character to peg due to the complexity of the character

i suppose we could suspend disbelief for a moment to imagine john mccain getting his hands on some kind of obama care decoder ring that voids the entire bill since it cant be properly deciphered and translated for implementation

mcsmeagol then gets a heroic impulse to grovel off to the shores of the potomac in the middle of february swallow the ring then up and do a clean jackknife into the river

Huntsman as Faramir gives him a too-prominent role. He is really one of the Blue Wizards, who show up, and then wander off as ambassadors to the East. After that nobody cares what they did and they only warrant a footnote in the larger story.

Ah, yes Strider. You forget he was reluctant to seek the throne and with it Isildur’s curse. For that fear he kept among with brethren rather than openly seek the road to Gondor. Yes, what fair ranger has the skills and experience to take us out from under the shadow of Mount Doom to rebuild a country?

Great post here fellow commenters. Did not know so many Tolkien admires out there. Leave it to Liberal media to attack a Hobbit. The assignment of LOTR names to current political hopefuls and sitting congress critters is spot on. Anyone named Gollum yet?

The mob is the Balrog, a demon Maiar corrupted by Morgoth Sauron’s master, in the First Age of Middle Earth. They are not allied or controlled by Sauron and remain dormant and concealed. If unleashed though they can do great harm. The Balrog of Moria destroyed the richest Dwarf Kingdom in blind malice against the prosperity.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is Grishnakh a lesser Mordor orc who covets Merry and Pippen. He comes off as a whiner while scheming to get the orcs to take the captives to Mordor. Grishnakh was easily vanquished when faced with a brave foe.

Robert Casey is a much better choice for Denethor, the misguided steward of Gondor. Denethor rejects the past wisdom of the west and falls under Saurons compulsion through a corrupted Palintir . He refuses to see the truth and despairs of victory. Casey refuses to see the truth in a haze of political correctness and hamstrings his forces with idiotic rules of engagement much as Denethor did.

The United States Military is the Armies of Gondor, a force serving with great valor, set against a horrid evil, and now nearly exhausted by incompetent leadership. Will we elect an Aragorn who will validate thier efforts and lead the U.S a> to victory?

It’s not that “they” don’t make them like Aragon anymore. It’s that we don’t raise them like Aragon. In order for someone to have integrity, honesty, courage and common sense they have to have some role models that model those behaviors.

Today we have absent parents, those who abdicated their responsibilities to schools and the government. We have drug addicted or drunken or sexually perverted relatives who twist and manipulate the young. Then there’s Hollyweird who’s never met a social ill it can’t exploit for it’s own reward. Don’t forget music with lyrics that even 50 years ago would have gotten the singer arrested, as well as the soft porn peddled in movies and books in the guise of mainstream fiction.

After all for us to raise an Aragon we’d have to, as a people GROW UP and take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. We’d also have to stop mocking those who chose to act like adults instead of 2 year olds. Not to worry, this is not going to happen in our lifetimes. As long as there are people like Sean Penn and Ron Paul around everything will pretty much stay the course.

Seanmahair,
“Aragon” is a former pre-Spanish Iberian principality. I think you mean to refer to “Aragorn.”
While I take your point about raising honorable and courageous children, it would be rather difficult for us to do so today even were were to adopt your recommended pedagogical model–because none of our children have Elven ancestors anymore. Alas.

McCain is Grima Wormtongue. From Wikipedia; “Gríma, son of Gálmód, was at first a faithful servant, but he eventually fell in league with Saruman, and from then on worked to weaken Théoden and his kingdom through lies and persuasion.
Tolkien describes him as “a wizened figure of a man, with a pale wise face, and heavy lidded eyes”, with a “long pale tongue”.
He was widely disliked in Edoras; everyone except Théoden called him “Wormtongue”, for his malicious words were like that of a serpent. Gandalf repeatedly compares him to a snake:
The wise speak only of what they know, Gríma son of Gálmód. A witless worm have you become. Therefore be silent, and keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a serving-man till the lightning falls.
See, Théoden, here is a snake! To slay it would be just. But it was not always as it now is. Once it was a man, and it did you service in its fashion.

To the Hobbit admirers, do not give up hope of the Hobbit not being the hero yet. Another article has appeared on the scene to attack the dastardly Hobbit. CFP lead with a Hobbit story on their page today. Check it out and
give your input. It appears the Left and MSM hate the Hobbit more than a tea party person.

You are great posters Pajama guys. Always a pleasure to read and particpate.
xschild